The Intelligence Archipelago: The Community’s Struggle to Reform in the Globalized Era by Melanie M. H. Gutjahr. Joint Military Intelligence College (http://www.dia.mil/college/index.htm), 200 MacDill Boulevard, Washington, DC 20340-5100, 2005, 283 pages.

The Intelligence Archipelago examines efforts to reform the intelligence community dating back to World War II. Written by Melanie Gutjahr (an intelligence professional with more than 25 years’ experience) during a one-year stay at the Joint Military Intelligence College’s Center for Strategic Intelligence Research, the book demonstrates that intelligence reform is difficult and sometimes impossible, thanks to turf battles, congressional wrangling, lack of resources, and personality conflicts. Most importantly, the study documents the struggle to change the course of the intelligence community after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new, globalized world.

Gutjahr refers to the National Security Agency and its struggle to intercept and monitor new communications media, such as the Internet, that the agency had not dealt with during the Cold War. As components within the intelligence community struggled with new tasks, a series of intelligence failures seemed to accompany the rise of new radical-Islamic terrorist groups. India’s nuclear tests, North Korea’s missile launch, and the proliferation of nuclear materials added to the community’s woes. Congress’s attempts to change the community after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new global order in the nineties illustrate the difficulty of some of these executive- and legislative-branch struggles. From a historian’s point of view, the author provides a useful service to anyone attempting to gather information about what transpired in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees during those turbulent years.

According to Gutjahr, the definition of “intelligence reform” and what it should encompass involves most reform movements, regardless of whether the executive or legislative branch pushes the changes. Others have argued that in the post–Cold War global age, intelligence is adaptive and that the community must continuously reform itself. Reform should occur as a community-wide, perpetual series of process-improvement tasks. Processes and procedures that guarantee success against today’s opponents will not work on tomorrow’s enemy, who has shown his adaptability and maneuverability inside our decision cycles—hence the need for intelligence reform. Believing that the intelligence community remains caught up in a 1947 structure, the author argues for far-reaching changes, which Congress in 2004 could not muster the votes to pass.

The Intelligence Archipelago covers every issue within the intelligence community for the last 15 years—including transnational issues that emerged with the proliferation of technologies, the creation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency), and the emergence of terrorists with state support. Intelligence officers will recognize all problems and situations described in the book, lending it the credibility that so many other reform texts lack.

Gutjahr also addresses the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and subsequent attempts at reform, using data from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the 9/11 Commission) to illustrate the systematic nature of intelligence failures. She then examines the commission’s report in detail and turns her attention to the struggles that accompanied the creation of the position of director of national intelligence. Her detailed exposé helps the reader understand the complex posturing within the intelligence community as Congress inevitably mandated reform. Such reform is hampered by a lack of a shared vision between the intelligence community on one side and Congress and the president on the other. Some of Gutjahr’s anecdotes suggest that improvement has occurred, but others demonstrate that the bureaucratic processes deeply embedded within the community have not changed.

Granted, the text suffers from problems that typically arise when authors attempt to turn an academic thesis into a book—that is, too many quotations, poor layout, and wordiness that makes it difficult for the reader to follow the author’s key points. Nevertheless, these flaws should in no way stop the intelligence professional, historian, or political scientist from studying the data therein. The Intelligence Archipelago is a gold mine of information, and the annexes—a collection of executive orders and legislative bills—show the path of reform to the current intelligence community. I highly recommend it to officers, intelligence professionals, and anyone interested in government reform.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF, Retired
Fairfax, Virginia

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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